


espionage (frozen not stirred)

by grayintogreen



Category: Alias (TV)
Genre: Gen, sark has a really inconvenient night, sark vs a russian winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 00:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayintogreen/pseuds/grayintogreen
Summary: "The Russian roof-clearing details in Saint Petersburg are clearly sub-par and should be reprimanded for their failure in dealing with ice. "Russian winters hate special-ops and Sark is learning this the hard way.





	espionage (frozen not stirred)

It was a quiet night in Saint Petersburg. A winter that was cold even by Russian standards generally dictated that people kept to their houses after night fell unless they particularly wanted to die of hypothermia, and there really weren't that many people in the area stupid enough to take the chance, even if they were used to the cold by now. There was no wind to speak of and the snow had stopped falling, and those might have been the only mercies provided by the harsh chill that had settled in for the night. For all practical purposes, it wasn't really a fit night for man nor beast and neither man nor beast in the immediate vicinity was stirring at the present moment.

And then came a sound- a harsh scraping noise followed by the heavy thud of snow hitting the street, having just unexpectedly fallen from the roof of a local house- that cut through the quiet and still and proved that there was someone stupid enough to be out in this godawful cold. Silence prevailed for a second more, although this time punctuated by heavy breathing, and then it was broken again by more scraping and frantic scrabbling in-between muffled swearing in at least five different languages. A shingle came loose and hit the ground with less of a clatter than it might have had the street not just recently been treated to an ample supply of unexpected snowfall, and then with a victorious grunt, a figure clad in black finally managed to get himself back into a position on the roof that wasn't teetering on the edge of sending him sliding to the street below to a rather unpleasant death.

Strictly speaking, Julian Sark was not having the best of nights.

All of this might actually have been prevented if the house he had chosen to duck into wasn't owned by an old _babushka_ whose sole reaction to an unexpected blond twentysomething flushed from cold and exertion ducking into her house to escape from a terrorist who wanted him dead wasn't so much to scream in terror as it was to hold him hostage. That might be pressing it a bit, but after the first three hours of being treated like a stray puppy by a lonely old woman, it actually felt like a hostage situation. By the fourth hour, he was vowing to find Fillipov and kill him very slowly with something very sharp and very unpleasant-looking for taking his gun during the confrontation that led to him needing to lay low in a residence for a bit, and by the sixth hour, he figured his best option was to escape. The actual plan for said escape had sounded so much better in his head, but apparently he had neglected to figure in the fact that this was a bitter Russian winter and trying to escape via the roof was not the best of ideas under those circumstances.

He took a deep breath and tried to sidle his way over to a nearby ledge, figuring if he made it that far, he was halfway to victory. His foot hit another patch of ice and he lost his balance and slid, just barely catching himself before he hit the ground, loosing several more shingles and another volley of multilingual invectives in the process as he struggled to get back into position again. _The Russian roof-clearing details in Saint Petersburg are clearly sub-par and should be reprimanded for their failure in dealing with ice._ Once righted again, he gave the entire a roof a reproachful look as if it was to blame for the failure of this entire operation and the successive unpleasantness he'd had to endure because of it, and if all possible should be destroyed... If it didn't destroy him first. Sark was starting to suspect that it had a vendetta against him, but that might be the mind-numbing cold making it hard to think clearly.

Something clinked against one of the shingles and Sark nearly lost his balance again in surprise, but through nothing other than a sheer miracle, he didn't go sliding off the other side of the roof to either death or some other possibly less fatal injury. Another clink- this one just narrowly missing his calf- and he dared to look down to see what the hell was going on and... Oh. Fillipov. Exactly what he needed right now was an angry Russian terrorist trying to shoot him down... And either the bastard's aim was terrible or he was trying to see if he could shoot him just enough to get him down off the roof and let gravity do the rest. 

Fillipov's next shot narrowly missed his head- well so much for that theory. He shifted uncomfortably, hoping to get down onto the ledge again, wondering how being shot at was miraculously going to make him more successful this time- unless adrenaline could melt the ice, he had very little faith in the situation, but it wouldn't hurt to try anyway. He attempted to throw his leg over the other side only to have one of Fillipov's bullets find a home in his thigh, and thus decide exactly how this situation was going to end before he could even try to make it to the ledge. He yelled loud enough to probably alert everyone in Saint Petersburg to his presence and finally just lost his balance completely, and no amount of scrabbling was going to save him this time. He braced himself for what was probably going to be an unpleasant splat, but a convenient snowbank broke most of his fall. Lovely. Now he was half-buried in a snowbank, his back felt like it had just been kicked by a very small horse, and there was a bullet in his thigh- nowhere near the femoral artery, so he'd probably live, assuming he didn't freeze to death at some point tonight. He would not be surprised, really. And that wasn't taking into account the _other_ problem.

This night could not possibly get any worse, and because those words crossed his mind, it inevitably did.

He was half out of the snowbank when he was distracted by the barrel of a rather large semiautomatic trying to make friends with his face- how in the hell had Fillipov gotten around to the other side of the building so fast? He backed down a bit, putting pressure on his wounded leg and wincing. Right. He's just fallen off of a roof and survived and now there's a gun pointed at him. If the universe would like to have him trampled by an unexpected stampede of horses, now would be about the time to do it.

"It looks like you're having a bad night, Mr. Sark."

_You really don't know the half of it_. He certainly didn't need Fillipov telling him that and the look on his face said as much. "I'm impressed that it took you six hours to find me, Comrade Fillipov," he muttered dryly. "I was betting on twelve if you ever found me at all. I was under the impression that you and your entire organization couldn't find a nuclear warhead in a military silo full of them, but I suppose I was mistaken. It's not every day I'm proven wrong so you should consider this a moment of triumph."

Fillipov nearly put his thumb on the trigger before drawing it back again, arching thick brows as if he wasn't sure if Sark was being serious or not. "They told me you get cocky when you get scared."

Sark shrugged, adjusting his position so that he wasn't putting all of his weight on his injured leg. The snow around him was starting to turn a rather unpleasant shade of scarlet. "Quite the contrary. I get incredibly cooperative when I'm frightened. I'm well aware that your employers will pay you far more handsomely for your efforts if you bring me back alive, so, at this present moment, I have nothing to fear."

"If you know that, then you also know the amount they'll pay me if I bring them back your corpse isn't so bad either," Fillipov growled back in response, looking all the more like he was just waiting on an excuse to pull the trigger. The fact that he hadn't yet probably just meant that he was considering whether putting a bullet in Sark's head was worth having less money just for the sheer satisfaction. Sark never claimed he didn't have that effect on people.

"Of course," he sighed, just a little bit more melodramatically than was really necessary, focusing on a spot just above Fillipov's shoulder. "I suppose I should warn you, however."

That got Fillipov's attention. "Warn me about-"

There was an satisfactory thunk and two hundred pounds worth of Russian hit the snowbank, just barely missing falling on top of Sark, himself, which really would have been the perfect end to this night. He sighed a little in both resignation and relief and stood up, cringing at the pain in his leg as he did so, and looked down at Fillipov's prostrate form, somehow avoiding the gaze of his savior, because there was nothing there he was going to particularly enjoy seeing if only because of who it was. 

"Well, I was going to warn you about the old woman standing behind you with a shovel, but I suppose it's a bit late for that now."


End file.
